


The Sounds of Someday May Be Home

by dragongirlG



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Caretaking, Geographical Isolation, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort Bingo Round 10, Identity Issues, Islands, Lighthouses, Loneliness, M/M, Memory Loss, Podfic Welcome, Shipwrecks, Wilderness Survival, can be read as romantic or platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:00:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21730825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragongirlG/pseuds/dragongirlG
Summary: In 1987, the Soldier gets stranded on an island in the Arctic Circle en route to a mission. After surviving for a few months on his own, his dreams haunted by a blonde man named Steve that he can't quite place, he discovers Steve's frozen body floating next to the island. Upon discovering that Steve is still alive, the Soldier brings him onto the island to help him thaw—and lights the dormant lamp in the island's lighthouse to call for help. Help soon arrives in the form of S.H.I.E.L.D. director Peggy Carter, who takes the Soldier and Steve back to New York.Fill for Hurt/Comfort bingo Round 10 (square: "stranded/survival scenario"). Partially inspired by Robert Eggers' movieThe Lighthouse.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 36
Kudos: 155
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 10, Survivor: Marvel vs Nature





	The Sounds of Someday May Be Home

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warnings:
> 
>   * Vomit and bodily fluids: Steve vomits after waking up from thawing
>   * Drowning & minor character death: The HYDRA agents accompanying the Soldier on the mission drown during a storm
> 

> 
> If I have missed any warnings, please let me know!

The Soldier's last mission ends in the ocean.

The wind whips his hair across his face as the ship heaves with the force of the waves, his eardrums ringing with the boom of thunder as lightning flashes continuously. Frantic HYDRA agents run around on the deck like ants, their shouted orders swallowed by the wind.

"Soldier!" they cry, tilting their faces up to the mast where he's perched. "Help us!"

The ship lurches onto its side, dumping the agents into the ocean. The Soldier holds on fast, adjusting his position, and he thinks, apropos of nothing: _This is like the Cyclone on Coney Island. Steve threw up the hot dog I bought him._ And then he frowns. _Who is Steve? What is Coney Island? What is a hot dog?_

The mast hits the water with a crash, bringing him back to the present. The Soldier sputters and coughs as cold saltwater goes straight down his throat. He climbs onto the side of the overturned ship and pulls his knife from his belt, hacking at the tarp covering the life rafts. He tugs on the painter, throws a life raft onto the water, and plops onto it belly first, paddling away from the wreckage.

The storm clears just as suddenly as it arrived. The moon shines down upon the Soldier as he lets the current tug him along. In the freezing air, he shivers in his damp uniform, unpleasantly reminded of his home base in Siberia. Although he's accustomed to entering and exiting the cryostasis chamber, he still hates the cold outside.

The Soldier attempts to search for the bodies, live or dead, of the HYDRA agents who accompanied him on the mission, but he fails. Sighing, he flips onto his back and settles into quiet contemplation, staring at the sky and identifying the constellations that he can see. He has a vague memory of another mission, lying in a rural field and pointing at the sky, murmuring the constellation names in English and entwining his left hand—a flesh hand, oddly—with that of the person beside him. That person had been—about the Soldier's size, but stronger, with a shock of gold hair—

The Soldier frowns and pushes the memory away. Memories are merely distractions, residues of old programming that he must not chase lest he malfunction. He should report this one to his handlers when he returns to base.

 _If_ he returns to base. He does not even know where he is right now.

The Soldier rarely receives a complete mission briefing; his handlers only give him the information that allows him to complete his objective. This mission was no different. He knows that his handlers were taking him south to some isolated military base on a small island off the coast. The Soldier was to retrieve a package hidden in some underground storage facility without being detected. It was his favorite type of mission: one where he didn't have to eliminate any targets. The Soldier knows he is a skilled assassin—but he prefers not to kill, most of the time. The sounds of death tend to linger in his mind long after he's been reprogrammed in the Chair.

The Soldier washes up on the shore of a foggy, craggy coast at dawn. The raft deflates after colliding with a particularly sharp rock, and the Soldier scrambles off quickly, draping the heavy wet plastic over his metal shoulder as he climbs onto shore. He is grateful now for the sodden leather clinging to his skin, even as it leaches his body heat. 

The lighthouse appears suddenly, its unlit tip catching a rare ray of sunlight like a beacon. Sand fills the Soldier's boots as he plods towards it, passing tangled webs of seaweed and sparse patches of beach grass. Other structures emerge as he gets farther inland: a two-story cottage, presumably the lighthouse keeper's quarters, with plywood hammered over its windows; two other smaller, squat buildings, also boarded up; a cistern; a doorless shed with a deep pit that the Soldier deduces to be an outhouse.

The Soldier, shivering violently, knocks on the rusted, narrow door of the granite lighthouse. When five minutes pass without a response, he takes the liberty of removing the padlock and chains wrapped around the knob.

Inside, the air smells like salt and rust. The Soldier shakes off the deflated rubber from his shoulders, looking around. The lighthouse interior is made of wrought iron, its central feature a spiral staircase that stops at a trapdoor about 50 meters above. The ground floor is bare except for a couple of small canisters at the foot of the stairs which turn out to contain kerosene. The Soldier frowns. He hasn't seen kerosene used for anything for—

Decades?

He doesn't know. He's rarely given the date when he comes out of cryostasis; he's merely taught how to use updated weaponry and technology that are relevant to the mission. But he knows kerosene power is—old. Older than him, maybe.

He sets the canisters down, shrugging, and climbs the stairs, his boots clanging loudly with every step. The trapdoor flips open easily, and the Soldier grunts as he heaves himself upward. Then he stops and stares, momentarily stunned by the sheer enormity of the Fresnel lens that occupies the top of the lighthouse. Warily, he circles it, taking in its multifaceted surface, the clockwork-like system of weights and pulleys that must use kerosene the light the lamp.

He turns his back to the lens and takes in a 360-degree view of his location. The fog has started to dissipate, and sunlight diffuses in through the thick cloud cover, lighting the land enough to show the Soldier that he's on a small, remote island somewhere in the Arctic Circle. Thick ice sheets crowd its northern and eastern coastlines, emitting an eerie blue-grey light that sends shivers down the Soldier's spine. The western and southern coastlines consist of jagged cliffs with sheer drop-offs. He must have washed up on the southern tip of the island, distinguished by a formation of sharp rocks that vaguely resembles a cat.

The Soldier explores the cottage next. The attic room consists of two twin beds with lumpy mattresses and mildewed sheets, illuminated by a narrow window that overlooks the ocean. Water leaks in through the rotted shingles. The bottom floor has two rooms: the first is a small kitchen with a rotting wooden table, two sets of tarnished cutlery and dishes, a water pump, and an old coal stove; the second is a small office whose main feature is a rolling desk containing a huge, moldy, leather-bound logbook, a pack of matches, a defunct compass, and a dried-out ballpoint pen. Unlit kerosene lamps dot the walls of both rooms.

The Soldier pockets the compass and matches, then tucks the logbook under his arm and takes it outside. He flips through the sticky pages, huffing in frustration as he realizes that most of the words have bled into each other, leaving nothing but illegible blobs of ink. At last he spots a number at the header of one of the pages: 1912. A year, most likely, though he can't be sure. He quickly flips through again, searching for other numbers on the way: 1892. 1895. 1901. 1908. 1917.

The Soldier pauses, staring at the last number. It feels significant, but he doesn't know why. His eyes track down the rest of the page frantically, but all they find are more incomprehensible ink patterns.

He sighs and returns the logbook back to the desk, then finishes scoping out the rest of the buildings. The small building with the round roof contains barrels of kerosene oil branded with some Nordic-looking name. The other has a large foghorn powered by an inactive coal engine, with sealed barrels of coal covering most of the floor. The cistern has a collection of briny water; residues of chalk remain on its edges.

There are no signs of current human habitation.

The Soldier sits in front of the lighthouse and looks out across the ocean. Given the antiquated structures, he suspects that he is the first person to step foot on this island since the early 1900's. He is completely isolated without access to radio or any sort of modern technology. Even if he figures out how to light the lighthouse lamp and sound the foghorn, it is unlikely anyone will find him here.

It is a thrilling idea—except for the fact that his survival depends entirely on himself. He does not have much experience in dealing with the elements. Although his handlers trained him to endure all sorts of conditions for the sake of a mission, they always made sure to give him the necessary mission materiel. The Soldier has no food here except for what he can catch from the air or the ocean; he has no clothing or tactical gear or weapons; he has no medical supplies, not even a field kit, should he injure himself beyond the limits of his serum.

He also has no real way of getting off the island. He could try to repair the hole in the inflatable life raft, but without equivalent material—and a sewing kit of some kind—there is little he can do.

The Soldier thinks, _I may die here. Alone. Forgotten._

Oddly, the thought is a relief. For so long he has only lived in brief snatches of time, in and out of cryostasis, always with handlers giving him _the mission_. He has never been allowed to just _be_. Perhaps now it is time for him to do just that—to live without expectations, without missions, without cryostasis and reprogramming, for however long he can.

* * *

Over the next few weeks the Soldier learns how to survive on the island. He spends most of his time on the southern coast, catching crabs with a rusty steel cage he found on one of the cliffs. He celebrates his success with dinner cooked over the ancient coal stove, topped off by a bottle of grog from the crate of liquor he found buried in the sand near the lighthouse. He doesn't get intoxicated thanks to his serum, but the burn down his throat is pleasant.

While he's outdoors, he befriends a one-eyed gull, who helpfully leads him to large piles of thick seaweed and splintered wood that he dries in front of the stove. The seaweed he saves for eating; the wood he stores on the ground floor of the lighthouse. The gull also points him to a cache of tools buried next to the keeper's quarters, which includes a large stash of matches, a hammer, pliers, nails of various sizes, chalk for the cistern, and needle and thread, the last of which he uses to repair his fraying, ragged uniform.

It doesn't take him long to figure out how to get the lighthouse lamp and the foghorn working. After a few brief flares of blinding light and a few experimental—and deafening—blows of the horn, he decides against using them regularly, loath to draw attention to his presence on the island. Instead, he makes sure to climb to the top of the lighthouse daily at dawn and dusk to surveil the land. He also patrols the island regularly, especially the ten-mile radius around the lighthouse that encompasses all the buildings.

At night, he lights a kerosene lamp and records his doings on the blank pages at the end of the old logbook. Afterward he flops onto one of the creaking twin beds, muscles pleasantly sore from the manual labor of the day. He sleeps restlessly, dreams haunted by flashes of gold hair and blue eyes and a deep male voice that the Soldier can't quite place. Sometimes memories of his missions creep through, too: screams, blood, begging. The Soldier grows accustomed to waking covered in cold sweat, with his heart attempting to beat itself out of his chest.

He feels his isolation most acutely in these moments, and he wonders if he should light the lens, try to find a way back to base—but his gut instinct stops him from reaching out every time.

Three months pass. The days get longer and warmer. The Soldier grows a thick beard that he tries to keep tidy with his knife; he only partially succeeds. His hair becomes long and wild, and he begins tying it back with a band of scrap rubber leftover from the raft. He airs out the bedsheets every morning, futilely attempting to rid them of their musty smell as the wind tries to whip them off his makeshift clothesline.

At some point, the Soldier decides to cut one set of sheets into the approximate shape of a cloak, layering it with a portion of the deflated rubber from the raft to make himself an insulating layer against the water and rain. The getup is surprisingly effective after he adds figures out a way to keep it closed—mostly by carefully punching holes along the edges and using seaweed to tie the ends together like a zipper.

He names the one-eyed gull Revekka.

His fragmented dreams grow more vivid—and more disturbing—with each passing day. One blonde man features prominently. Sometimes he's bigger than the Soldier, straight-backed and dressed in a strange red and blue uniform with a white star on his chest; sometimes he's small and hunched, wearing oversized, outdated clothing. Either way, the Soldier's gut twists with a strange yearning whenever he sees the man's face. He wonders if he met him in a past life, perhaps during a mission—or if the man is even real it all.

With a sharp pang of loneliness that is rapidly becoming familiar, he realizes that there is no one with him that he can ask. He doesn't know if that makes him feel better or worse.

* * *

One sunny day, the Soldier is cat-napping outside in between chores when Revekka starts squawking at him incessantly. The Soldier groans and sits up. "What?" he barks, surprising himself with the English word. He usually talks to the gull in Russian.

Revekka squawks and flaps her wings, hopping around impatiently until the Soldier scrambles to his feet. He follows her to the northern coast, where thick, flat sheets of blue-green ice sit in silence, glaringly bright in the sunlight. The Soldier's skin crawls as he takes in the landscape, and not only because it reminds him of Siberia; there's a strange, hushed stillness to the air that he's wary of disturbing.

Revekka circles around a collection of small, shining slivers of metal scattered throughout the ice. Very gingerly, the Soldier picks his way along the ice sheets, collecting them. They're all made from the same material, likely an aircraft that's now sunk far down into the ocean. The Soldier looks for other signs of wreckage but finds none.

The Soldier returns to the keeper's quarters and lays out all the metal pieces on the table, studying the jagged edges to see if any of them fit together. Three fit together to form the English letter "V", and the Soldier thinks he can make out a partially completed "K" and "E" from the others. Something tickles at the back of his mind—a memory, perhaps—but he can't make out any more clues.

That night he dreams of huddling naked in a cell, pain throbbing from the stump of his left arm as he whispers a name like a prayer: _Steve._ He wakes with the name dying on his tongue, and with the certainty that Steve is the blonde man he keeps seeing in his dreams.

He also thinks: _Valkyrie_ , but the word means nothing without context.

A week later, Revekka leads the Soldier north again. At first, the Soldier can't figure out why; then, he hears a faint, high-pitched beeping coming from somewhere under the ice. Cursing under his breath, the Soldier rushes toward the sound, slipping and sliding on the enormous ice sheets that blind him with reflected sunlight. He stops abruptly once water slaps against his booted toes, squinting as he tries to locate the source of the sound.

A flash of silver catches his eye. The Soldier frowns and leans forward, trying to get a closer look. The beeping gets louder. There's a round silver disk, painted with red and white concentric circles, with a white star in the middle of its blue center—a shield, he thinks with certainty, though he does not know why.

He reluctantly strips and lowers himself into the ocean, hissing as he submerges himself. He treads water for a minute, keeping his head above the surface as he gets used to the temperature and pressure, and then he doggy paddles himself through floating ice in the direction of the shield.

As he gets closer, he realizes that the shield is attached to a person—a person who's lying encased in a block of ice. A person with a very familiar face.

_Steve!_

The Soldier swims toward Steve frantically, his heart beating out of his chest. The shield is resting on top of Steve's chest, covering the identical stars and stripes on his Captain America uniform. ( _Captain America? The imperialist American propaganda symbol?_ the Soldier thinks wildly, filing it away for later). Condensation beads on Steve's skin, giving it an almost angelic glow. The Soldier swims closer, intending to find some way of pushing the ice toward the shore, when a faint wisp of air emerges from between Steve's lips.

The Soldier goes very still. Then he lifts his flesh hand, shakes off the water clinging to it, and holds it under Steve's nose.

It's there. A breath, barely tickling the hair on the Soldier's knuckles.

The Soldier's heart jumps to his throat.

Steve's alive, and it's imperative that the Soldier keeps him that way. Not because Steve might be Captain America and a potential enemy of the state, but because—the Soldier cares. The fervent desperation to save Steve's life is familiar, like the Soldier is prodding at an old wound that has scarred over hundreds of times. Is this a residue of his programming—or of who he was _before_?

It seems so foolish now, but he hadn't even considered that he might have been a person before HYDRA found him bleeding in the snow. Someone with a name, a life, a family. A lover.

How much has he lost?

The Soldier shakes his head sharply, forcing himself back to the present. He circles around the ice block, assessing. Fortunately the ice is still all in one piece, and it hasn't melted enough to let Steve's limbs move at all. The beeping is coming from some device nestled between the shield and Steve's chest; the Soldier hopes it's not a trigger for an explosive and decides to leave it for now. He pushes the ice block toward the frozen shore with his metal arm, visually monitoring Steve's breathing all the while. To his relief, the blueness starts to fade from Steve's lips, and Steve's skin even starts to regain the slightest hint of color.

The Soldier pauses once the ice block bumps up against the ice sheets covering the north half of the island. He scrambles out of the water and quickly dons his ragged uniform, coat, and boots. Then he sprints toward the lighthouse, almost wrenching the door off its hinges in his haste. He grabs a canister of kerosene and races up the staircase, maneuvering the weights until he's able to dump the kerosene into the proper container. Brilliant light floods the room as the lamp ignites, the Fresnel lens casting a long ray of rotating light out over the ocean.

He moves on to the foghorn next, dumping fresh coal into its engine and winding it so that it blows periodically every half hour, then runs away as fast as he can before he accidentally deafens himself.

The Soldier stops to grab a lumpy mattress from one of the twin beds in the keeper's quarters, hoisting it onto his back before rushing back to where he left Steve. He lays the mattress on top of the ice sheet, pounds out all the lumps as best he can, and then settles on top of it.

Questions crowd the Soldier's mind as he keeps watch over Steve's defrosting form. If no one finds them here, is he able to provide for Steve's recovery? What does Steve even need for recovery? Defrosting from ice should be similar to thawing from cryostasis—but the Soldier was barely conscious for that step in his programming.

He tries to think. He knows the HYDRA techs would dump him in the Chair, wipe the cryostasis fluid from his skin and hair, and then hook him up to various monitors and give him an IV drip, none of which are available. What else would they do? They'd give him a nutrient slurry once they were sure his stomach was functional. They'd make him drink water—hot, but not boiling. They'd check his motor functions—reflexes first, and then, after assessing his mental status, they'd test his voluntary responses to commands.

He can do some of that for Steve, he thinks. It won't be enough—but it'll be more than nothing.

His thoughts inevitably circle back around to Steve's identity as Captain America. What would Captain America be doing with the Fist of HYDRA? It seems absurd that they would've met, especially since Captain America died before the Soldier was created. But the Soldier has dreams of Steve before the serum—is it possible they knew each other before they signed their lives away to their respective masters?

The sun is dipping below the horizon by the time Steve has thawed enough for the Soldier to move him. He breaks off any remaining ice chunks, wipes the water off Steve's exposed skin, and carefully lifts Steve onto the mattress serving as a makeshift pallet. He plucks out the beeping device first; it's a small metal and rubber cell with a strange blue battery, and it seems to be giving off a distress signal, which is somewhat of a relief. The Soldier pockets it and then bridal carries the mattress to the keeper's quarters, laying it down on the floor in front of the coal stove.

He carefully removes the shield from Steve's clenched fingers and sets it against the wall, then peels off the sodden gaudy uniform, laying it on the floor to dry. Then he takes the sheet from his own bed and drapes it over Steve's prone form. As he waits for water to heat on the coal stove, he writes down his account of the day in the logbook, his fingers shaking with a sudden onslaught of nerves. He forces himself to take several slow, calming breaths, then continues his entry, switching from Cyrillic to English toward the end.

The kettle shrieks when the water boils. The Soldier tips some water into a cup and lets it cool for several minutes, testing the temperature before cupping the back of Steve's head and slowly tipping the water down Steve's throat.

The Soldier sits back, frowning at the niggling familiarity of the action. Has he treated Steve like this before? The answer comes to him in the form of an image: Steve, small and thin, curled up in a bed, body wracked with wet coughs—pneumonia, the Soldier thinks with a sudden certainty; Steve got pneumonia because he was out in the snow, and the Soldier—though he wasn't the Soldier then, was he?—had been at his bedside, feeding him warm broth and honeyed tea, murmuring pleas and prayers under his breath in English— _Come on, Steve, don't do this to me, don't leave me, please—_

A loud squawk jerks him out of his thoughts. Revekka is at the window, head tilted curiously as she looks in at Bucky and Steve. There's a fish in her mouth. The Soldier glances at Steve, who's still unconscious, though breathing steadily with a healthy flush to his cheeks. The Soldier deems it safe to leave him for a minute and steps outside, circling around till he finds Revekka. She drops the fish at his feet, flaps her wings, and then flies off.

"Thank you," he murmurs in English, watching her go. He still doesn't know why the gull is so attached to him, but he's sure he would not be alive if she hadn't helped him so many times.

The Soldier guts the fish outside, tossing the bones onto the beach away from the lighthouse, then proceeds to make a fish stew. He winces a little when the pot clangs on the stovetop, its sound coinciding with one of the foghorn blows. He hopes that all the noise won't disturb Steve's recovery. Steve doesn't seem to notice.

The Soldier removes the fish once it's boiled and stuffs a chunk of it into his mouth, swallowing it and washing it down with a cup of water. He sets the rest of the meat aside, then carefully spoons out the remaining broth into another cup. He checks Steve's pulse and breathing—both steady and slow—and then carefully tips the broth down Steve's throat. Half an hour later, he repeats the same process with another cup of warm water.

The Soldier keeps vigil throughout the night, pausing only to check on the lighthouse lamp and foghorn engine before returning to the keeper's quarters. He strips off his own clothes and presses his body against Steve's to give him some body heat, dozing lightly with eyes half-slitted as he matches his breaths to Steve's. This too feels familiar, and he sinks into it without reservation.

The Soldier's handlers would mock him if they saw him now. They might even ask him to kill Captain America.

The Soldier would refuse.

Dawn breaks bright and early, and with it comes movement from Steve beyond the rise and fall of his chest: spasms and tremors as his body regains sensation, accompanied by soft, high-pitched whimpers that make the Soldier's stomach clench with dread. He kneels beside Steve, hands fluttering above Steve's body as he tries to figure out what to do. Eventually he takes to wiping the sweat off Steve's skin with a warm washcloth, then drying him immediately with the sheet. He doesn't know if it helps or not.

Steve's agony lasts well into the next morning, and then he abruptly goes silent. The Soldier feels half-mad by that point, eyes dry and crusted from lack of sleep, hair greasy and frizzy from all the times he's clutched at it in distress. He checks Steve's pulse and breathing, smoothing a hand over Steve's clammy forehead. Steve's eyes flutter but don’t open.

Another hour passes before the tight lines on Steve's face finally smooth out into the tranquility of sleep. Only then does the Soldier feel comfortable enough to go out and check on the lamp and foghorn. He gathers some seaweed and accepts another of Revekka's fish offerings as he walks back to the keeper's quarters. As he cooks up another fish stew, he examines the distress signal device in his pocket, setting it on the table. It's still beeping, though the sound is barely audible now. The blue glow it's emitting still hasn't lessened.

The Soldier wiles away a few hours paging through the logbook, doodling a rough sketch of the device before deciding to list—in English—all the dreams, or memories, he's had involving Steve. He's in the middle of writing "New York" when he hears Steve gasp loudly from the floor.

The Soldier's next to him in an instant, holding his own breath as he watches Steve's eyes flutter open.

"Steve," he whispers.

Steve's brow furrows as his piercing gaze lands on the Soldier. "Wh—" He coughs and sputters, sweat breaking out onto his forehead as his skin takes on a greenish sheen. The Soldier quickly rolls him onto his side and shoves an empty pot under his mouth, watching him vomit up a combination of broth, seawater, and bile.

The Soldier sets the pot aside, then uses his metal arm to prop Steve up into a sitting position, bringing a cup of water to Steve's lips. "Drink," he murmurs.

Steve drinks obediently, eyes darting over the Soldier's face. "Bucky?" he whispers, eyes widening in disbelief. He's shaking.

"Who the hell is Bucky?" asks the Soldier.

Steve's expression shutters.

The Soldier feels like he's been stabbed. "Was that my name? Before?" he tries. Desperation rises in him, along with the sudden, urgent need to know. "Please, Steve."

Steve startles a little at the sound of his own name. "You know me?"

The Soldier nods, grabbing the logbook from the desk. "I dreamed about you." He shows Steve the page he's been working on. "I didn't know if you were real, but then I found you in the ice."

Steve's eyes take on a glossy sheen as he reads through the list. His voice is hoarse as he says, quietly, "These are memories. Of me and—and Bucky. Me and…you."

The Soldier nods. "I thought so." He rolls the name "Bucky" around on his tongue. It doesn't quite feel right, but it doesn't feel wrong either. "Bucky. That's my name?"

"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. But—I called you Bucky."

The foghorn bellows loudly, making them both jump.

"Sorry," the Soldier mutters.

Steve looks around. "Where are we?"

"I'm not sure," the Soldier admits.

"Am I—are we dead?"

"No," says the Soldier. "Or—I don't think so." It hasn't occurred to him until just now: he might have died in that shipwreck, and this might be the afterlife, but everything has felt real so far.

Steve pauses to clear his throat. "Tell me what you know about this place."

"I will," says the Soldier, "But you need some broth first, and maybe a little meat, too."

"I—uh." Steve's cheeks redden. "I really need to piss."

The Soldier nods. "I'll help you."

"There's no need—" Steve tries to get to his feet, only to tumble back down like a newborn foal.

The Soldier gives Steve a stern look. "I'll help you," he repeats.

After Steve has finished his business just outside the door of the cottage, the Soldier sits him down at the table, lending him the worn rubber overcoat to give him some semblance of clothing. The Soldier spoons out fish stew for both of them and sits across from Steve, watching the spoon tremble in Steve's hands. Most of the broth makes it into Steve's mouth somehow, and so does some of the meat.

Steve finishes half the bowl before he begs off, claiming that he's starting to feel sick. The Soldier downs his own broth and clears the table, then tells Steve to lie back down on the mattress. Steve complies, wrapping the sheet around himself, and only then does the Soldier start explaining how he ended up on the island and how he found Steve.

Steve is silent for a long moment after the Soldier finishes his story. Then he says, quietly, "HYDRA. When did they make you into their Soldier?"

"I don't know," the Soldier admits. "They told me that they found me in the snow with no memory and one arm. But—it was after Captain America died. After you died. Supposedly."

An anguished look crosses Steve's face. "After I crashed, then."

The Soldier nods. "Before HYDRA. We…we knew each other. We were…friends?"

"Yeah," says Steve hoarsely. "We were friends, Buck. Best friends."

The Soldier likes the sound of that. He has never been someone's friend that he can remember—he is a tool, a weapon, at most a comrade. _Friend_ is nice; _best friend_ is even better.

Steve opens his mouth to say something else, but then he tilts his head with an alarmed expression, staring up at the ceiling. "You hear that?"

The Soldier nods. The distinct _thump-thump_ of helicopter blades is rapidly getting louder, mixing with another bellow from the foghorn. "Help is here. You should go with them, get a medical assessment, start your life."

Steve's brow wrinkles, his face flashing with hurt and confusion. "You're…not coming?"

The Soldier swallows the lump in his throat, looking away.

"Buck," Steve entreats. "Please. Whatever happens next, I don't want to do it alone."

The Soldier takes a shuddering breath, unable to resist the desperation of Steve's plea. "Okay. I'll go with you." He helps Steve stand, knotting the sheet over Steve's body like a toga, and then he hands Steve his shield. "Here."

Steve looks at him gratefully, gripping the shield with shaking hands. "Thank you, Buck."

The Soldier nods. He pulls on a leather glove over his metal hand, shoving it deep into his pocket for extra concealment. Then he wraps his flesh arm around Steve's waist and helps him to the door.

The two of them step out into the high noon sunlight, watching the helicopter slowly descend onto a smooth patch of sand. Revekka circles around it, screeching, nearly dive-bombing the woman who steps out onto the beach.

Steve's face goes white, and he staggers against the Soldier. "Peggy?" he whispers.

"I'm Director Carter of S.H.I.E.L.D.," the woman calls out. She's dressed impeccably in a suit, her brown hair is streaked with silver. "Who might you be?"

"It's me, Peg," says Steve. "Steve Rogers."

"We'll see about that," says Carter, eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Who's your friend?"

Steve opens and closes his mouth, looking like a deer in headlights.

The Soldier grunts. "My name is James Barnes. I got stranded here some time ago."

"Good lord," says Carter. "Two dead men in one day. Well, come along. We haven't much time."

"Wait, Peg," says Steve, and Carter gives him a sharp look. Steve's cheeks flush. "I mean. Director Carter. Ma'am. What date is it?"

Something in Carter's expression softens. "June 12, 1987."

Steve looks gobsmacked. "1987?"

Carter nods.

Steve glances at the Soldier, who shrugs.

"Um," says Steve, running a hand through his hair. "Where are we going?"

"New York," answers Carter. "S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. Howard Stark is waiting for you."

"Howard," Steve whispers, looking stunned. He takes a deep breath. "Buck?" he asks. "You ready?"

The slightest frisson of grief shoots through the Soldier's heart. The only thing he will truly miss is Revekka, but he's built himself a simple, decent life here that deserves to be appreciated. He glances up at the gull, who's still circling overhead, and smiles wistfully as he surveys the island one last time. The lamp and the foghorn will subside on their own, and he's sure that Carter and her S.H.I.E.L.D. agents will come back and clear everything out, including the logbook with his account of his time here. That won't disappear, and even if it does, he has it in his memories—which will not be erased as long as he avoids the Chair.

"Buck?" Steve repeats.

The Soldier nods. "I'm ready."

Steve gives him a grateful smile.

The two of them follow Carter into the helicopter, and the Soldier helps strap Steve into his seat before doing up his own belt. As Carter pilots the helicopter off the ground, murmuring radio instructions to Howard Stark, the Soldier stares out the window, watching the island and its lighthouse gradually disappear from sight.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, kudos, and transformative works are always welcome. Please let me know what you think. I thrive on comments especially.
> 
> Title from ["Sounds of Someday"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMOrOPunE1k) by Radio Company.
> 
> This movie was heavily inspired by Robert Eggers' movie _The Lighthouse_. I have borrowed extensively from that movie's setting, notably the lighthouse structure and the one-eyed gull.
> 
> Come say hello: [Tumblr](https://dragongirlg-fics.tumblr.com/) | [Dreamwidth](https://dragongirlg.dreamwidth.org/) | [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/dragongirlg)


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